The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Review)

David Fincher's adaptation of the immensely popular novel by Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson forces the viewer to confront every bit of the book's gruesome depictions of humanity, just as the 2009 Swedish film adaptation did. Fincher's film is unique in that it raises a question that neither of the previous two iterations of this source material had proffered - WHY THE FUCK IS EVERYONE SPEAKING ENGLISH?



Okay, we get it. Daniel Craig is getting his nerd on, (but he's a cool nerd - look how he dangles his glasses off his chin when he's not wearing them) and is running a newspaper in Sweden. His name is Mikael Blomkvist. Why does he sound like James Bond?

I understand not wanting to change the source material, but the filmmakers could at least have made him an English ex-patriot to give a narratively acceptable reason for his lack of a Swedish accent. That simple change would even explain why everyone else in the movie has to speak English to him, a feat for which they manage to affect Swedish accents.

But no. Here is an American movie, filled largely with English-speaking actors, (save for the awesome, but woefully miscast Stellen Sarsgard), inexplicably set in Sweden, with everyone speaking English. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far, and if Bryan Singer's otherwise excellent Valkyrie couldn't get away with this, I'm not letting The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo off the hook.

Valkyrie was actually more culturally accurate, because all Pirate Nazis speak English with American accents.

It is a pointless exercise in Hollywood cash-grabbery. It's technically competent, and while it struggles to fit the novel's enormous levels of exposition into its 158 minute running time, it is occasionally quite good. Unfortunately, there is already a movie called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  that is technically competent, which struggles to fit the novel's enormous levels of exposition into its 152 minute running time, and is occasionally quite good. And every speaks freaking Swedish in it.



Because the titular character (Rooney Mara - surely in a star-making turn) is largely irrelevant to the plot until more than halfway through the story (my sole complaint about Larsson's novel), the majority of the film is divided between plot-advancement and character building. By the time the two protagonists meet, one's character has been brutally examined, and the other is James Bond in a sweater.

Fincher's movie isn't bad, when examined in a vacuum. But it's redeeming qualities are crippled by the redundancy of the entire operation.

6.5/10

Sidenotes:

-In an attempt to distance Daniel Craig from the James Bond franchise, the film has the best title sequence in the James Bond franchise.

-I understand that the novel and Swedish film's name is actually Män som hatar kvinnor, which translates to Men Who Hate Women, but that is a stupid name, and I prefer the much less literal, more enticing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.